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Humanistic Buddhism: Plurality and Humanistic Buddhism in the Context of a Buddho-Christian Comparison
On the morning of July 27, 2015, Venerable Master Hsing Yun met scholars and other devotees attending the Third Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism on the third floor of the Dharma Transmission Center, during which he gave a speech “How I Realized Humanistic Buddhism,” (originally titled “The Causes and Conditions that Guided Me to Humanistic Buddhism”).1 I had the great fortune of personally listening to this speech, during which Venerable Master responded to doubts (eight of them) on Humanistic Buddhism raised by those who do not quite understand it, covering topics such as tradition and modernization, laity and monastic, transcendence and engagement, origins and contemporary, spiritual cultivation and activities, etc.
The Influence of Indian and Buddhist Elements in Medieval China: A Study of Buddha’s Birthday Celebrations In Luoyang during the Northern Wei dynasty
The Buddha’s birthday festival reached an unprecedented level of grandeur during the rule of Northern Wei when its capital was at Luoyang (495 to 534 CE). Buddhism was indigenous to neither the rulers nor the native Han Chinese. Yet, the Buddha’s birthday celebration on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month became a popular ritual in which the entire city participated. This paper studies a particular phenomenon in this public ritual, the use of carriages in image processions, tracing the heritage of these carriages back to the religion’s land of origin, India, and their literary sources. The intention of this paper is to study the reasons for such phenomenal success, in particular as they relate to the functional role of a religious festival and how the tenets of a religion can enable itself to be popular and sustainable. The Buddha’s birthday is a relevant case study because over 1,500 years later, countries such as Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam continue to celebrate it as their public holiday.
National Recognition of a Religious Festival: Comparing Buddha’s Birthday Celebration Organized in Taipei to the Northern Wei Buddha’s Birthday Parade
Festivals make up a major feature of all religions1 and human societies. A festival means to most people a “special day or period, usually in memory of a religious event, with its own social activities, food and eremonies,” or an “organized set of special events, such as musical performances.” A religious festival presents a unique opportunity to gain insight into the confluence of religion, culture, and politics. Among Buddhist festivals, Buddha’s birthday stands out as the most popular and most public. When religious celebrations go outside the temple gates, it is an indication of wide acceptance of Buddhism by its host populace. In this paper, I shall compare two significant Buddha’s birthday celebrations: one in antiquity and one in recent times. These two circumstances are significant because the heads of state are conspicuously present outside their symbols of power and the entire capital city observed the occasion. By comparing large-scale commemoration of Buddha’s birthday celebrations held before the Office of the President in contemporary Taipei with a city-wide parade held in Luoyang during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), this paper will identify the factors critical to indigenous Chinese people accepting major festivals of a foreign religion.
Engaged Buddhism and Humanistic Buddhism: A Comparison of Principles and Practices
Situating Buddhist Modernism within a Global Context: The Global Spread of Fo Guang Shan
A Proposal for Experimental Application of Humanistic Buddhism to Psychotherapy and Counseling
Recrafting Role Models: A Discussion of the Contemporary Application of Buddhist Life Education Through the Comic—The Ten Great Disciples
As an aspect of social life, religion has the adaptive function of helping humans overcome psychological and daily obstacles, attaining inner stability and peace of mind; the integrative function of consolidating group cohesion through common beliefs, bringing out the organizational power of human communities; and the cognitive function of solving the enigma of ultimate meaning, answering fundamental questions on life, the universe, existence, and morality for humans. These three functions of religion imply its capacity to meet the three essential needs of survival, community integration, and addressing the ultimate concern in life, hence its importance cannot be understated.
A Modern Interpretation of Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Belief that ‘Life Does Not Die'
In his first preface to Humanistic Buddhism: Holding True to the Original Intent of Buddha, Venerable Master Hsing Yun adopted simple and easily understood words to summarize the articles of faith and essence of Humanistic Buddhism. In the second preface titled “My Understanding of Humanistic Buddhism,” Venerable Master Hsing Yun identified the general misconceptions and doubts many people have about Humanistic Buddhism.
Commentary: Yang Renshan, a Living Bodhisattva
Yang was born in an eminent family of Confucian literati in Anhui Province in 1837, two years before the outbreak of the Opium War. He witnessed the years of turmoil in nineteenth century China: the Taiping Rebellion and subsequent series of China’s defeats and humiliations. When he was twenty-seven years old, his father died of illness and the following year Yang Renshan himself contracted the plague. After his recovery in Hangzhou, he continued to suffer from depression. By chance, he read two texts entitled Dacheng Qixin Lun (Mahāyānśraddhotpāda Śāstra; Mahayana Treatise on the Awakening of Faith) and Lengyan Jing (Śūraṅgama Sūtra).